66 NATURE-STUDY 



them the poets' interpretation of the relation between man 

 and nature. But to attempt to use such Hterature as informa- 

 tion material is wrong, and a perversion of the proper use of 

 hterature. The best way to study nature is not to read some 

 fine lines about it, but to take the actual things themselves 

 and observe and study them. The excessive use of all 

 this figurative literature and fairy lore in nature-study is to 

 develop gushing, rhapsodizing, and sentimentalizing, which 

 may reveal some enthusiasm but little nature knowledge. 

 It is a wrong notion that a six-year-old child cannot un- 

 derstand, and does not like, good, simple, straightforward 

 language; that he cannot grasp a fact unless half -hidden 

 under metaphors; that he has a natural distaste for the plain, 

 unvarnished truth; and that the only way to give him a 

 knowledge of nature is to smuggle it in under the guise of a 

 myth or a fairy tale. Conscious effort in study is a good 

 thing. It develops mental strength and self-reliance in 

 learning. 



Science, whether studied in the high school or in the primary 

 grades, demands that the minds of the pupils shall follow the 

 laws of logical reasoning, that the imagination be controlled, 

 and that the physical qualities of the things studied, and not 

 the creations of the imagination, shall be the basis of the 

 reasoning. As soon as imagination, unchecked by the facts 

 in the case, comes in, nature is no longer seen in its true 

 aspects. 



In general, it seems best that nature stories and nature 

 literature should be read after the nature lesson has been de- 

 veloped in the legitimate way. Then the child has a correct 

 idea of the object. If he now reads a figurative poem, a fable, 

 or a fairy tale in which the object of the lesson appears 



